Tales from the dark side: a phenomenography of adult critical reflection

Encouraging adults to undertake critical reflection is one of the most frequently espoused aims of graduate programmes of adult education. A considerable body of adult educational literature has been produced in this area, most of it focusing on conceptual analysis or on debate reflecting the strains between progressive, humanistic and liberal interpretations of these processes and radical, critical, socialist interpretations. Missing from the debate surrounding critical reflection as an adult capacity has been attention to the way adults feel their way through critically reflective episodes ‐ to understanding the visceral, emotive dimensions of this process. This paper uses Marton's concept of phenomenography ‐ the exploration and portrayal of how learners experience and interpret learning ‐ to outline a phenomenography of critical reflection as it pertains to one group of adults who happen to be adult educators. Five themes emerge from journals, conversations and autobiographies: impostorship (the sense that participating in critical thought is an act of bad faith), cultural suicide (the recognition that challenging conventional assumptions risks cutting people off from the cultures that have defined and sustained them up to that point in their lives), lost innocence (the move from dualistic certainty toward dialectical and multiplistic modes of reasoning), roadrunning (the incrementally fluctuating flirtation with new modes of thought and being) and community (the importance of a sustaining support group to those in critical process). The paper elaborates these themes and describes how developmental activities for adult educators in critical process can be grounded in participation in critical conversations within learning communities.